Robot Arms Will Need to Learn to Balance Before They Can Build

At the 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) last week, researchers from ETH Zurich in Switzerland revealed a robotic system capable of stacking and balancing irregularly shaped items. In the researchers' paper on the robotic arm, they describe how the work could help develop new robotic systems capable of building large structures or assembling complex components in a factory.

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The robot uses a camera to scan objects in 3D and a torque sensor to control its precise movements when stacking items. The arm of the robot collects items of various sizes using a three-fingered gripper. As the video shows, stacking doesn't work 100 percent of the time, usually due to small errors and instabilities as more stones are stacked. The researchers found that untrained humans attempting to stack the same six stones made common errors.

The researchers hope the study will help develop robots that can collect broken down materials and build a structure that is stable and does not require adhesives. For this to be possible the robot must be able to do a few things on its own. Its 3D scanning, for example, is critical to allowing the robot to select the right pieces and position them so they will stack in a stable configuration. The bot also determines the weight of each item to further determine how it can be used in construction.

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The robot may not be perfect at this point, but the technology developed in studies like this could be crucial to future construction and manufacturing. As the ETH Zurich researchers point out, robotic systems are going to be absolutely necessary if we hope to construct buildings on other planets like Mars. Work like this is crucial if we want to send up the robots to start building our Martian outpost.

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